Hey guys, update on this: Ended up going with Elementary OS for its ease of use. It works as well as Ubuntu (at least I haven't run into any major issues with it). Appstore is a little small, but I mostly install packages through my terminal anyway. Everything looks nice and functions well, so no issues yet. Generally if I want to install an application and there's a stackoverflow question on downloading/installing that specific application for Ubuntu, the directions will work for me too (using ElementaryOS).